Mobile marketing is becoming more important as more people start to use mobile devices to browse the Internet. More than half of the US population owns smartphones, 10%-30% of all web visitors are from mobile devices, and most mobile searches are for local results. But before you set out to build a campaign for mobile marketing, there are three key things that you need to know.

#1: Your Site Must Be Mobile Friendly

The first step in getting your business ready for mobile marketing is to make sure your site is mobile friendly. A site that is not optimized or formatted for mobile sites will have trouble loading, display incorrectly and cause errors. This ruins the browsing experience for users and will eventually lead to your site being abandoned.

Although you can create a separate mobile site, the best solution right now is to go with responsive design. Responsive design takes your main site and presents the optimal design according to the device used. That means that it can display for eReaders, tablets and smartphones of all screen sizes. Responsive design is better because it saves the trouble of creating, marketing and managing two separate sites.

#2: Testing Designs is Essential for Developing a Successful Mobile Site

Just because your website is mobile friendly doesn’t mean that you’re going to get any results from mobile marketing. You probably have tested your main site’s design and optimized it for the best results, but the same setup will not work for mobile users. You need to make sure you create a mobile design that delivers the best user experience possible.

Some of things that you should test include navigation links, headers, usability issues, call to action, layout, links and the font (face and size). Start measuring how mobile users are responding to your site and isolate one element at a time. To get ideas on what to change, study other mobile sites to see what they’re doing and why it’s working for them.

#3: Make Sure Your Marketing Efforts Integrate for Mobile Users

Mobile should not be used as a standalone strategy. You need to integrate every aspect of your marketing plan to accommodate for mobile users. For example, if you’re running a Google Adwords campaign, you should use a phone number link to convert mobile users. If you’re using email marketing, make sure your emails are designed with mobile users in mind.

Go through all the marketing strategies you are currently using and think about how you can make the strategies mobile friendly. It might also be a good idea to develop a campaign with the behavior of mobile users in mind if a large number of your visitors use mobile devices. Most of the time, all that is required are some small adjustments.

Mobile marketing is a great way help your business grow, but it does require a lot of time, effort, adjustments and integration to make it work.